I’m not sure how a place called Dublin settled mostly by Germans ended up with a driving range and Scottish pub, but Jay Jordan, Chip Nilges and I had a great lunch and talk in the fine May weather there.

Jasmine de Gaia and Bob Schulz and I talked about Worldcat and the inclusion of social networking and social software ideas and experiences in and around Worldcat.org Note: Worldcat includes over 1 billion items in over 10,000 libraries worldwide.

Search for an item in libraries near you:Enter title, subject or author

That evening we (Jay, Eric Childress who served as my keeper and host, Tom Hickey, Michael Teets and Bill Carney) talked, ate and had good wine at an espresso-less Italian restaurant. Eric made up for the expressolessness by taking me to a Starbuck’s the next morning (thanks Eric).

The OCLC Research folks are very deep into various interesting information problems. I was doing quite a bit of running to catch up with them.

Hotel coffee isn’t coffee. Especially not the stuff left in my room. Downstairs eatery is not coffee either. Last night, we ate at a great and inventive “Italian” Restaurant here in Dublin. Wonderful conversation. Good wine. Very good food. But to my shock, no espresso! According to the wait (not an Italian BTW), “No one every orders the stuff.” I got coffee. No one apparently orders that either. At least no one who likes coffee. Outside in a warm Ohio night, I spy a Starbucks. It’s closed.

My host Eric is a trooper tho. He has promised to take me to good coffee in a few minutes!

Yes I am a whiner.

Ken sends me to the GrindCam; DJ Pez the prize winning barista is setting up chairs in the cool morning. The ugly Grind Trailer is gone. Folks are sitting outside enjoying the Carolina spring. With very good coffee.